It took 3 days.

I was only able to tell the time because of the watch I still had on me, though I tried not to look at it often, as the ticking away would have slowly driven me crazy.

I have to emphasize, before anyone accuses me of extreme ineptitude, just how small this target was. It was minuscule. And I wasn’t the kind of guy to get lucky enough to hit it on accident. Tom, sure, but not me. Luck was not something you could imitate, or steal. At least, I hadn’t figured it out yet.

Eventually, Cadoc and Amaia insisted that I let them help. I resisted, but finally had no choice but to let them, rather than starting a fight. They were worried about starving in there, after all.

They had no better luck than I did. They threw Cadoc’s summoned sticks up at the target, and were even less accurate than I was. Throwing a spear up like that was not a natural throw, and getting the power to reach the target using just your arms was not a simple task either. And it wore them out much faster.

This made me feel better, obviously. I wasn’t useless, after all. Well, at least, not in this specific arena. This was just a fucking impossible target. Even if I had to starve to death, that did make me feel a little better. Mom could say whatever she liked, I was doing as well as anyone else around.

The muscles in my arms cried out, my joints began to ache from repetitive movements, and my mind began to wander out of boredom and frustration. On the second day, I had no choice but to sleep, as I was barely able to stand or keep my eyes open. I ate some of our dwindling provisions, and slept.

When I woke up on the third day, Cadoc and Amaia were still asleep. Part of me wanted to just keep laying on the hard ground, give up, and sleep forever.

Not going to happen, I thought. I’m hitting this target even if it’s with my dying breath.

I got up, grabbed my slingshot from my belt - I had slept with it - and tried again.

After the first few shots of the morning, which were infuriatingly close, something finally clicked. The aim, the position of my arms, the distance I pulled back the bands, the way I pinched the steel ball - with my knuckles, rather than my fingertips - even my breathing, and the sense of calm that washed over me; everything finally dialed in. My arms still ached, but they moved with perfect form. I remembered assembling a desk back on Earth, which had a piece of thin metal that wouldn’t quite fit how it was supposed to. A manufacturer error had made the piece too narrow. Instead of returning it, I simply beat the steel, using a hammer and a makeshit wedge to widen the piece until it snapped into place. Something about the way my arms moved after hours of abuse reminded me of that. It wasn’t supposed to work, but, stubbornly, I made it work.

I released the ball, simply letting go of my grip rather than making an exaggerated movement like I had before, which had been ruining my aim. The bands snapped forward, the ball flew through the air like a bullet, and the sound that echoed - a meaty *THWUMP* - sounded like music to my ears.

If I had blinked, I could have missed the shot. It was certainly too fast to track through the air as it flew. But an instant after the steel ball left the pouch, the button was pressed in. The door below slid open.

“Yes!” I yelled, pumping my fist in the air. “Fuck yes!” I wasn’t sure if I’d ever felt so happy in my entire life.

I noticed Cadoc and Amaia were starting to wake up, but I paid them no mind. I grabbed steel ball number 4, pinched it in the pouch, and pulled back the band again.

*THWUMP* Another shot, this one went wide, but just barely. I didn’t let it bother me.

“You’ve done it!” Cadoc cheered behind me, but I continued to ignore him, and loaded another steel ball.

*THWUMP* This one hit the button again. I was overjoyed, even as the door slid shut once more.

“What are you doing?!” Cadoc yelled. I simply grabbed my last ball.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

*THWUMP* I hit the button again. The door hadn’t hardly had time to shut, before it began sliding open again.

I roared out in laughter.

-

After come celebratory drinks, we all finally moved on from our monotonous imprisonment. I gathered up the steel balls first, and even took the time to cover them in melted nails. This was quickly becoming a usable weapon. The only question now was how powerful it would be when it hit flesh. It certainly sounded powerful.

After having passed so many hours in that room, we weren’t at all certain that the woman with the staff would still be around. Either she had left - which was most likely - or she had wandered further into the dungeon. The only real chance we had of finding her now was if she was hiding somewhere nearby, immobilized by terror, or if she had gotten lost. Which was more than possible.

The next room wasn’t a room at all. It was a cavern, like the one before with the mold, but on a completely different scale.

This cavern was, well, cavernous. It was easily one hundred yards wide where we were now standing, and seemed like it might widen even more further on.

The space was suffused with a reddish-brown color, lending the surroundings an atmosphere of Hell. A drudging, grueling Hell. The cognac hues seemed to emit from dark roots that grew on all the walls, and hung down like monstrous appendages from the high ceiling.

Far in the distance, I could almost make out movement - but it was impossible to see what it was. Could have been human.

“This is part of the dungeon?” I asked, almost loathe to break the silence.

“I hope so,” Amaia answered, quietly. I wasn’t really sure what she meant by that, but I left it alone.

Strange plants which lived without sunlight grew there. They were pale white, tinged with only a hint of red veins, and were nearly translucent, as if spending too long in the darkness had sapped them of all pigment.

There were large-leafed ferns, and sickly looking mushrooms of all sizes, and even the rare patches of white-red grass. We were in a wide, flat area, but the path ahead dropped down yet further at a slight angle, and as we descended, we noticed strange things on the walls of the cavern, like sea shells the size of a person. As we peered at them, two bulbous eyes crept out from one, and, with the swiftness of dripping molasses, the giant limpet-creature slithered along the stone.

What else is down here? I thought to myself.

“Have either of you seen anything like this before?” I asked, finally.

Amaia shook her head. “Never,“ Cadoc said.

The question seemed to have broken a spell for Cadoc. His smile cracked his face again. “What an adventure!” He said. “Just imagine what powerful items might be hiding around any corner.”

I pointed to some white grass, which looked like it was being blown back despite a complete lack of wind. “You think this stuff is valuable?”

“Absolutely,” Cadoc said. “Either that, or it’s poisonous. But that is valuable in its own way.”

I frowned. Maybe I should have stolen that gardening book from Berenguer after all.

We were walking down a stony pass, our path cutting down through the rock with walls on either side. The passage was wide enough for the three of us to walk side by side with some room to spare, but not much room.

I was about to ask if we should bother trying to harvest anything around when Amaia held up a hand, signaling us to stop. She touched a finger to her ear, and I listened carefully.

It was a… slithering sound. Like a snake, except…except the snake would have had to have been massive. And I could hear footfalls too, which didn’t make sense. It sounded like some massive creature with only two limbs dragging itself across the ground, like a man who’d just lost his legs, desperately crawling towards safety before succumbing to his wounds.

The noise was so unnerving that my first thought was that, somehow, Berenguer had managed to cast an illusion on us down there. But that was impossible. Probably.

Then, maybe thirty yards ahead, where the passage ended and opened into the wider space of the cave, a wrinkled pinkish head slid into view.

The creature - monster, I became quickly convinced - was, like many of the plants, nearly translucent, though it’s pink color reminded me of a worm. That wasn’t far off from the thing’s appearance, except it had a head like a snake, and it hissed at us, revealing a forked serpentine tongue and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. But it wasn’t a snake, because below its head were two arms, ending in claws, which it used to drag its mass forward.

Even with just the head and arms peeking out, the creature was the size of a horse. Luckily, it turned from us. Either it wasn’t a carnivore, or we didn’t look tasty. Or it had just finished eating the woman with the staff, and was full. Whatever the case, after hissing at us again, it turned its head, and dragged itself away. But the body just kept going. The pinkish snake-worm mass kept slithering past, long after I would have thought possible.

Suddenly I realized why that chamber with the button existed. It wasn’t some sort of trap. It was like an airlock, and if a monster made it’s way in, it would be unable to hit the button, and would starve inside. I tried to think back and remember if I had seen any bones that could have been from a creature like this one. I had.

“A dragon,” Cadoc whispered, clearly in awe.

“Doesn’t look like a dragon to me,” Amaia said, and I was happy I hadn’t had to say it. For a moment I had thought maybe dragons were different in this world. Not that dragons existed on Earth, but you get what I mean.

“Close enough,” Cadoc said. “When we defeat it, they will sing songs about the three heroes defeating a dragon and rescuing that cowardly woman from her death.”

“You think that thing has the woman captive?” I asked. I saw absolutely zero evidence that that was the case.

“Looks more like a big worm with arms than a dragon,” Amaia muttered.

“Details!” Cadoc bellowed. “The point is that we will fight it, and defeat it, and eat it.”

“Eat it?” I asked.

“We spent quite a lot of our provisions without making any progress, as you may have noticed. We need to find some new food, and quickly.”

I didn’t like where the conversation was heading at all. Especially since the body of the monster still hadn’t finished slithering past us.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” I said quickly, hoping Cadoc would listen to reason. “This thing doesn’t seem hostile. So we’ll keep going, and try to find that woman. At least for another day. I still think that she might be hiding somewhere. While we’re searching, we can brainstorm about whether or not we can kill that big lizard, and how we might do it. We have enough food to last us a couple more days, at least.”

Thankfully everyone agreed, and it felt strange to be something close to in charge. If we were all following my lead, we were in trouble.

The tail of the monster finally flitted past. I dreaded having to ever go toe-to-toe with that thing, and I hoped we would find something slightly smaller to hunt. Maybe the woman with the staff would know how to get some food.

Or maybe she had already become food. That would really ruin my plan to extort money out of her.